USA > Michigan > Ionia County > History of Ionia County, Michigan : her people, industries and institutions, Volume I > Part 10
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48
Philo Bates, who was son-in-law to Babcock, died at an early day, and in 1840 his widow's later husband. G. C. Overhiser, came to the neiglibor- hood. Mr. Overhiser located in lonia village in 1839. and from that period for many years onward he rendered valuable and untiring service as a Pres-
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byterian preacher. lie traveled to many points and preached in many places. as circumstances arose to call for his efforts. Previous to making his home in Ionia he had passed through a somewhat extended experience as a licen- tiate preacher of the Methodist Episcopal church. Mr. and Mrs. Overhiser later went to live with A. H. Tibbetts ( their son-in-law ), on section 30.
E. Le Valley was a settler in that neighborhood in 1838. on the J. Bene- dict place, and in the month of January, of that year, Levi Taylor moved from eastern Michigan to section 31, where his son, W. B., later lived.
In the northeast quarter of the township there were but few settlements as early as 1846. In the fall of that year Darius Stone, his brother. John R. Stone, and brother-in-law, Daniel R. Calkins, brought their families in ( having bought their lands in June of that year ) and began to improve the wilderness. Darius Stone had three lots ou section if and one on section 13, Calkins, land on section 2, and John R. Stone, on section 1. In June, 1846, a man by the name of Dalrymple was working a place on section 13 for Sammel Hayden, who was then living in Lyons, but who soon after- wards came out himself to occupy his land.
On section 1, in the extreme northeastern corner of the township, Gard- ner Chidester was keeping tavern on the township line road between lonia and Lyons. He had a hundred acres of cleared land and, what was some- thing out of the common, a framed house and two framed barns. On the Chidester place Perry Spaulding, a later occupant, hung himself in his barn in 1876 because of financial reverses. Major Olmstead, of North Plains. owned on section i a lot then occupied by one Mabie as tenant, and on sec- tion 12, where lived later, there was a settler named Buskirk. On section 4 a Mr. Anderson had a grist-mill on Prairie creek, in section 9, about a mile below Anderson's. Both these mills were burned, Going's in 1863 and Anderson's in 1878, when the property was owned by J. B. Welch, himself a settler in that neighborhood before 1846, having married the widow of Mr. Roberts, who came to that locality not far from 1840.
Moving northward again, we find that Nathan C'hidester was on see- tion i in 1846. In 1848 he sold out to L. F. Burdick and moved away. Thomas MeKenzie and Henry Searing, his brother-in-law, had farms on section 2, but vacated them in the spring of 1817. William Kitts, then living on section 12, had been an active figure in the business of Michigan pioneering and as far back as 1837 or earlier assisted in making surveys in various portions of the county. Timothy Vorce came to the neighborhood in 1819, and about that time also came J. B. Chase. W. W. Weed, C. G. Wheelock, N. G. Cornell and others.
CHAPTER IX.
KEENE TOWNSHIP.
Township 7 north. in range 8 west, was a part of Otisco until February 16. 1842, when that portion of the town lying on the east side of the Flat river was organized as the township of Keene. Subsequently the fraction was attached to Keene. On February 29, 1844. that portion of Boston lying north of the Grand river was set off to Keene, and on March 17, 1849, was again restored to Boston.
When John Covert and Simon Heath agitated the project of applying for township organization, there was difficulty in obtaining the suggestion of a township name. In the dilemma someone moved that Edward Butter- field, the oldest man in the township. be allowed to supply the name. Butter- field, being called upon, promptly replied that he would bestow the name of his native town in New Hampshire, and Keene it stood.
The first meeting in Keene township was held at the house of Nathaniel Beattie. April 4, 1842. John 1. Covert was chosen moderator, Edward But- terfield. Nathaniel Beattie. Ephraim Abbott and Aaron Hardenburgh, inspec- tors, and Simon Heath, clerk. After organizing and choosing pathmasters the meeting adjourned to Allen Day's house, where the election was held. Thirty-nine votes were cast and the following officials chosen: Supervisor, Asaph C. Smith: clerk. Cyrenus Day; treasurer, Samuel Wells; justices of the peace, John L. Covert, Joseph W. Sprague. Aaron Hardenburg and Z. H. Brower ; highway commissioners, Henry V. N. Covert, George W. White and Asa K. Phipps : school inspectors, Simon Heath, James Chrysler, Asaph C. Smith and James Baird ; overseers of the poor, Granson L. Hall and John L. Covert: associate assessor. Elijah Sprague : constables, Prindle Hubbell, Loren Sprague and George W. White; highway overseers, John Covert. W. Sprague, E. Butterfield, H. V. N. Covert. E. Abbott, E. Sprague and John Devine.
Keene township, which is designated on the United States survey as township 7 north. range 8 west. is one of the western townships of lonia county. It is bounded on the north by Otisco township, on the west by Kent county, on the south by Boston township and one the east by Easton town-
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ship. Flat river, which is a sluggish water course, without mill-power, is the only stream of any consequence in the township.
The lands in township 7 north, range 8 west, were not offered for sale by the general government until August 5, 1839. Prior to this, however, settlers had come on, pre-empted and occupied certain tracts in this territory. These settlers, who had set forward at once to clear and improve the lands so occupied, were simply "squatters," although, as a matter of fact, they had come to stay and were settlers just as much as if they had owned the lands. They had no more legal rights than others had, as concerned the ultimate purchase of the lands, and were liable to be thrown off at any time by persons who wished to buy the land. But the pioneers of Keene town- ship knew their moral rights and proposed to maintain them in this matter alone. They formed an association for mutual protection, and chose Asa L. Spencer, of Otisco, to represent them. Such a move was necessary, since there were always hordes of land speculators about the land offices ready and eager to pounce upon and buy lands improved by squatters or pre-emp- or at the earliest opportunity.
The early settlers in Keene township knew how matters were liable to work in that respect, and not only took concerted action to protect them- selves, but announced it freely that the health of any designing speculator who wished to turn his energies towards depriving the actual possessors of the land they already selected and began to improve, might be impaired. The consequence of such positive action was that when the land sale took place at Ionia, in August, 1839, there was no attempt made to disturb the Keene settlers.
The first settlement made in Keene township was on section 25 and was made in the fall of 1837 by two young unmarried men, Orrin Owen and Charles Hickox, of Monroe county, New York, who erected a shanty and cleared a small section of ground. But they evidently became tired of the rough backwoods life, as they left for parts unknown and cannot be linked with the permanent settlement of Keene.
The honor of being the first permanent settler in the township can right- fully be bestowed upon one man, Edward Butterfiekl. Mr. Butterfield, with Cyrus Rose, cleared some land in 1837. and, on February 2, 1838, settled with his family on section 25. In December of the same year Mr. Rose settled with his family on section 36. In 1838 James Monk came in from Canada and in March of that year located on section 26. founding what was known as the Canadian settlement. Morton Reynolds, also a Canadian.
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came to section 27 in April and was followed soon afterward by John Fol- lett, who made his home on section 35. In the same year John Conner, .from Oakland county, pitched his tent on section 35. Other settlers of this period were James Crysler, from Canada, on section 26; Samuel Wells, from St. Lawrence county, New York, on section 23: Dexter Cutler, in June, near Flat river, on section 6, and Charles Higgins, who settled on section 6.
In 1838 or 1839 William Lott came to section 30 and there opened what he pleased to call a tavern. It was a mean little place, intended for the dispensing of poor whiskey, but was the occasion of the opening of a stage route between Grand Rapids and fonia. The stage route was a popular highway before the opening of the Detroit & Milwaukee railroad, and for a time two four-horse coaches passed over it daily. In addition to the dis- tinction which Lott won as a dispenser of "fire-water," he was the perhaps better one of being the first person to erect a frame house in Keene town- ship, his lumber coming from Fallasburg mill, in Kent county. His home was erected in 1842 and, the year following, Samuel Wells built on section 23 the first frame barn in the township, the lumber of which came from Bellamy mill, in Easton township.
Elijah Sprague was a prominent member of the Canadian settlement in Keene. He came in the summer of 1839 with his family and was fol- lowed closely by Philip Monk and James Baird. Thomas Beattie and his son, Nathaniel, purchased a tract of land in Keene in 1839. Other settlers of 1839 were John L. Covert, Jennison Henry, Samuel Heath and Nathaniel Davenport.
Zelotus B. Frost, William Sparks and Ephraim Abbott, all of Court- land county, New York, came to this township in June, 1840, and settled on section 15. After they had brought their families, the entire company of twelve people lived for two weeks in an abandoned shanty on section 24. In the spring of 1846, Ephraim Abbott. Jr., set up a shop on section 15 and began the manufacture of barrels, tubs and sap buckets. In 1848 he changed his business location to section 22 and also manufactured chairs, rakes and grain cradles. This was the only factory the township of Keene ever had.
James Day. a settler in Oakland county in 1825. moved to Keene in June, 1841, accompanied by his sons. Cyrenus and Allen. The father took out a tract in section 28 and the sons in section 27.
James Baird and Prindle Hubbell lived on section 26. Zacchens H. Bower came to the township in 1840 from New York and made a settle- ment on an eighty-acre lot in section 13. Joseph Brown was also a settler
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in section 13, having come a few years before Brower. The next settler in this locality was Widow Electa Ann Lee and her two sons, Amasa and Archelaus. Delos Gibson settled in Eaton county in 1837, but in 1841 he purchased a forty-acre tract of land in this township and settled on the same. In that neighborhood there had been no other attempt to settle, and from Potter's Corners, Mr. Gibson had to hew his road through the timber a distance of two miles. George W. White came to the town in the spring of 1841. In the same year A. C. Smith settled on section 25. Ira Pinckney, a settler in Oakland county in 1826, joined the settlers of Keene in the fall of 1842. In the same year J. W. Sprague and his brother, Harlow, came to section 29. J. W. Sprague decided that there was need of. a postoffice in the community, consequently he circulated a petition for that purpose. It was given the name Rix, after Rix Robinson, an Indian trader. Sprague was made the first postmaster. Shortly before that, in 1845. Avon post- office was established, near the eastern line of the town, and given in charge of Asaph C. Smith. The office was later removed to Easton.
Silas Sprague, father of the Sprague named above, came into this town- ship in the year 1844 and settled on the northwest quarter of section 29. Other settlers in Keene at that early date were Joseph Gardner, C. C. Sayles. Elias Sayles, Charles Sayles. George Denton, Harvey H. Vinton, Philip Marble, G. N. Jackson and the Carrs, including the father and his sons, James, John and George.
The Canadian settlement has already been covered and there is another settlement which deserves a place along with the early settlements. The neighborhood in which the Monks. Robert Taylor, James Crysler, John Follett and Cyrus Rose lived was given the name of Dickertown-this by reason of the fact that the settlers there out-Yankeed the veriest Yankee that ever lived in their extraordinary passion for trading or "dickering." It is truly asserted that so strong was the passion for dickering upon the inno- cent Canadians, that cases were known where members of the little com- munity were frequently aroused from midnight slumbers to open, discuss or close a trade. Dickertown is now simply a remembrance, but many of the stories of the trades made are still fresh in the minds of the early settlers.
In 1844 Gilbert Avers came to this neighborhood, and, in 18.15 Vine Welch, Roland Hull, Israel Bowen, Oliver Bowen, James Bowen and Alpheus Bowen also settled in Keene. The next year C. G. Hunter came from Oak- land county and settled on section 34. William H. Pearsall had already settled in section 33 two years previous. Other early settlers who came
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after the territory had taken on a more civilized air were D. W. Woodman, Matthew Brown, William Clark, William N. Higgins, W. Campbell, Will- iam Cannon, Pierce Jenkins, Joseph Long. R. Russ, Harvey Batson and Aaron Pratt, which closes the list of early settlers.
The first birth in the township was that of Berilla, daughter of Morton and Alvira Reynolds, born on May 17, 1838. The first death was that of Mary, wife of Robert Rose. The first wedding was solemnized in January, 1840, when Alvin Butterfield and Ilena Phipps were married by Squire George Dexter, of Easton.
SUPERVISORS.
1843, A. C. Smith; 1844. S. Heath: 1845, A. C. Smith; 1846, no rec- ord; 1847. S. Heath: 1848, A. C. Smith; 1849. S. Ileath; 1850, Z. B. Frost; 1851, S. Heath: 1852, G. R. Sayles; 1853. A. C. Smith; 1854, T. Jacques ; 1855. A. C. Smith : 1856. S. Wells: 1857, G. R. Sayles; 1858-59. J. Sprague ; 1860, S. Wells: 1861-62, J. B. Sprague: 1863-64, O. Bowen; 1865, J. Sprague; 1866-67, C. Cowles: 1868-76, .A. F. Lee; 1877-78. R. Hardy ; 1879-80, V. Welch; 1881-83, H. N. Lee; 1884-85. Austin Lamberton; 1886-88, Willard Hawley: 1880. Austin Lamberton ; 1890-91-92-93-94-95- 96-97-98-99-1900-01-02, Judson Lee: 1903-04-05-06-07. Anthony M. Kohn; 1908-09. G. P. Ilawley: 1910 to the present time, Menton K. Jepson.
CHAPTER X.
LYONS TOWNSHIP.
An act of the Legislature, approved March 11. 1837, provided that all that portion of Ionia county lying east of the lines running north and south through the centers of townships 5. 6, 7 and 8 north, in range 6 west, should be set off and organized for temporary purposes as a township. with the name of Maple. Who named the township does not appear, but naturally the source of the name was that of the Maple river. so called long before that.
On March 6, 1838, townships 5 and o north, in range 5 west, and the east half of townships 5 and 6 north, in range 6 west, were set off to Port- land. On March 30, 1840, the name of the township of Maple was changed to Lyons, the change in name being effected at the instigation of Lucius Lyon, who desired, doubtless, the additional honor of being remembered in the township designation as well as in the name of the village. On Febru- ary 29. 1844. the township numbered & north, in range 5 west, was set of to the township of North Plains, excepting that portion southeast of the Maple river. The tract named was set off from Lyons to North Plains, January 9. 1867.
On March 22, 1848, sections 22, 27 and 34, in township 7 north, range 6 west, together with sections 1, 2, 3. 10, 11 and 12, and so much of sec- tions 13, 14 and 15, as lay north of Grand river, in the same township, were attached to lonia.
These various eliminations left to the township of Lyons, township 7 north, range 5 west, and sections 35. 36, 25, 26, 23 and 24 and that portion of section 13 lying south of Grand river, all in township 7 north, range 6 west. The territory named as lying in township 7 north, range 6 west. south of Grand river, was detached from Lyons, March 13, 1867, leaving the township with six miles square.
The first township meeting in Maple was held April 3. 1837, and .Asa Bunnell was chosen moderator. There was an adjournment to the house of E. Lyon & Company, and the election which followed town officials were
JUNCTION OF MAPLE AND GRAND RIVERS, NEAR MUIR.
الشربة
COMMONWEALTH DAM. ON GRAND RIVER. IN LYONS TOWNSHIP.
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chosen as follow: Supervisor, Isaac Thompson; clerk, David Irish,' asses- sors, Hiram Brown, Asa Bunnell and Almeron Newman.
Lyons is known as township 7, in range 5 west, and is bounded on the north by North Plains, on the south by Portland, on the east by Clinton county and on the west by Ionia township. There are three streams flow- ing through this township, namely, Grand and Maple rivers and Stony creek. The Grand river enters the township at the southwest corner of section 33 and flows north and east in a meandering course through sections 33. 28. 29, 20, 19 and 18, upon the latter of which it receives the waters of Maple river and then passes out of the township. The Grand river is rather a picturesque stream as it flows through this township. It is dotted here and there with islands and fringed with high banks, while its graceful curves are pretty features in the landscape. It is a rapidly-flowing stream and fur- nishes a natural drainage for this section. The Maple river is a sluggish stream and possesses no mill power. It was of great service to the lumber- men in the early days, but at present has very little value except for fur- nishing a natural drainage for the farms. It flows south and west from section 2, is joined by Stony creek on section 9, and itself joins the Grand in section 18. Stony creek is the last stream of Lyons township. It enters the township at section 21 and joins with the Maple in section 9.
The settlement of Lyons can be divided into two separate parts, namely, that of the township and that of the village. Thaddeus O. Warner and John Gee were among the first settlers in the township outside of the village. They came together to this county, and after a difficult journey through the then unsettled country, eventually, in 1834, reached the cabin of Philo Bogue, on the present site of Portland. They then pushed on to the village of Lyons and engaged William Hunt, who was then keeping a trading sta- tion in the village, to act as their guide in selecting a suitable location for a home. Gee selected a tract on section 36, in what is now North Plains, and Warner a similar tract on section i of Lyons. In the six miles square now called Lyons township, between Stony creek and Maple river, there were just two settlers. One was Frank Chubb, who had settled in the spring of 1834 on the northeast quarter of section 11, and the other was Nathan Ben- jamin, on the northeast quarter of section 1.
In April, 1835. Warner married, and in May, with his wife, set out for his new possessions in the west. Their journey was a perilous and tire- some undertaking and must have sorely tried the heart and nerve of the newly married couple.
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John Gee did not return to his land until 1836, and after a year in North Plains sold out to Moses Dean and moved to a mill-site on Stony creek, in section 14. In 1837 he erected a mill, the first in the township. William Merrill, who came out with Gee as a farm hand, settled in 1841 on a tract in section 11, Lyons township.
In 1837 Sebastian Beckwith came to the township and claimed the place on section I occupied by Nathan Benjamin. Benjamin was a squatter, but he was given an ample recompense for his work on the tract. Beck- with was soon after joined by his two bachelor brothers, Norton and Hiram.
Alexander Chubb, a New Yorker, came to Lyons in 1837 and pur- chased land in section 11. In October, 1838, he returned and the following year he built the first frame barn erected in the township.
The first child born in the township was Franklin Chubb's daughter, Antoinette, who saw the light first on the 28th day of June, 1835. The first death is said to have been that of Harry, an infant son of Franklin Chubb. The first adult person to die is believed to have been Miss Pahner, sister to Silas Crippen's wife, with whom she was living at the time of her death. She was buried in the Lebanon cemetery, which for some time thereafter was used by the people in that portion of Lyons for burial purposes.
The first crop of wheat raised in the township was sown by Franklin Chubb, in the fall of 1834. There were eight acres in the piece and, to the surprise of everybody. it threshed thirty-six bushels to the acre. Chubb made so poor a guess about it that he offered to sell Thaddeus Warner one acre of the standing wheat, reckoned at twenty-five bushels to the acre, but Warner would not even have it at that. Until 1839 the wheat was threshed in Lyons by causing oxen to tread it ont. In that year a Mr. Castle, of Owosso, came in with a Burrill thresher and straightway effected a wel- come revolution in harvest methods. Under a strong pressure. the okl Bur- rill thresher could dispose of from one hundred to two hundred and fifty bushels daily. Thaddeus Warner bought the machine of Castle and for twenty-five years after that pursued continuously the buisiness of wheat threshing.
Daniel Hunt came to Ohio from New York, and from there came on to Detroit. At Lyons he bought a forty-acre tract on Stony creek and sent for his family.
Settlements in that portion of the township south of Stony creek were made as early as 1837, the earliest comers being Zina Lloyd and Henry Bartow. In 1838. when Nathaniel Searing visited Lyons in search of a land
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location, he found but three settlers between Portland and Lyons on the road between the two points following the river on the east. These three were Webster and Haskins, in Portland township; Lloyd was building a saw-mill there on Goose creek and was keeping a postoffice, called "Maple." The mail was kept in an old cupboard, but there was so little of it that it did not make much difference where he kept it.
In 1838 came Richard Farman to land on section 34 that he had located in 1836, Asa Bunnell and Joseph Letandre to section 21, and Asahel Hop- kins on the south township line, upon the western bank of the river, where George Dutton had made the first clearing. When Farman settled there was no house between his and Lyons. There was a "pepper" mill at Port- land, kept by Newman, but it was not much better than the primitive pestle and pan used by many a settler to grind his corn. In 1838 Henry Bartow was living on the south township line, on section 35.
Zina Lloyd, who is spoken of as a man of considerable capacity, moved into Portland and carried the postoffice with him.
In 1838 there was a decent road along the river between Lyons and Portland, following essentially the course pursued by the road later used. When Nathaniel Searing came, in 1838, he found a number of people who had come into the neighborhood meanwhile, namely, Robert Toan, Zina Lloyd, Berrick Cooley, Richard Parsons, Hopkins Roe. Levi Ferguson. Henry and Harvey Bartow, Patrick Lawless, George Lloyd and George Marcy. Mr. Searing bought his land of Elder Ilicox. Taxes cost hin five dollars, leaving him just two dollars and a half.
The force and use of philosophy are illustrated in the following inci- dent as related by Mr. Searing. In the summer of 1843 Eller Chauncey Reynolds went to Northville for a load of supplies and, among other things, brought back a case of shoes, which, he gave out, he would exchange for hides. Now, it so happened, that Searing, his wife and the children had been going barefooted for some time. simply because they were too poor to buy shoes. It also happened that a steer belonging to Searing had mired and died the day before Reynolds got back with his case of shoes. Philoso- phy taught Searing that he was in great luck after all in having the steer mire when he did, for the hide was just what he wanted to trade for shoes.
In 1837 Lewis Willey, then a young man, came west with Cole and Wadsworth, who settled in Portland, and he recollects that getting through the woods was such slow work that they were all of one day floundering through three miles of mud. In 1837 he found Henry Bartow on section
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35 and farther north Allen and Chauncey Reynolds and William Bartow, Sr., on section 23 and Stephen Willett on section 24.
Lewis Willey worked about in the Reynolds neighborhood until 1839, when he settled upon section i in Portland, and in 1845 located on the north- east quarter of section 35, where George W. Farman and Archibald Wil- cox had made clearings of nineteen and twenty acres respectively. Shortly after Willey came to the town, in 1837, Isaac Canfield, a brother-in-law to Henry Bartow, made a settlement upon section 36, and at a later date came a Mr. Preston, Hiram Stevens and Levi Ferguson.
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